While Blackbeard examined it, one of the voyageurs threw open the breech of the dead man's gun. It was patent to all that it had been fired once. The empty cartridge was still in the chamber.
“A damn shame poor Joe didn't get you,” Blackbeard said bitterly. “But he did pretty well with a hole like that in him. Come on, you.”
“Search the other bank first,” Smoke urged.
“You shut up an' come on, an' let the facts do the talkin'.”
They left the trail at the same spot he had, and followed it on up the bank and then in among the trees.
“Him dance that place keep him feet warm,” Louis pointed out. “That place him crawl on belly. That place him put one elbow w'en him shoot.”
“And by God there's the empty cartridge he done it with!” was Blackbeard's discovery. “Boys, there's only one thing to do—”
“You might ask me how I came to fire that shot,” Smoke interrupted.
“An' I might knock your teeth into your gullet if you butt in again. You can answer them questions later on. Now, boys, we're decent an' law-abidin', an' we got to handle this right an' regular. How far do you reckon we've come, Pierre?”
“Twenty mile, I t'ink for sure.”